There are various issues, as well as positive outcomes, of allowing gifted children to be educated in the same classroom as their peers of average intelligence. For example, children who are members of the latter group can learn from their more advanced peers both intellectually and emotionally, as they can both receive assistance from them with their schoolwork and discover how to relate and befriend to children of various abilities, strengths and weaknesses through their interacting with them within the classroom. However, a common issue with the mainstreaming of gifted children is that they will not be exposed to the same academic rigor as the other children due to their previous knowledge of their material that is provided to them. Because of this, various modifications need to be made to the work that these children receive in order to receive the benefits of the mainstream classroom while still receiving schoolwork that will allow them to further develop their knowledge.
I hold this opinion because there was a gifted student in my middle school who was in my classes. While in seventh grade, she was taking high school Algebra courses and studying high school vocabulary. She would also assist us with our schoolwork and provide us with interesting ideas within classroom discussions, which we greatly appreciated due to our thinking in a more typical perspective. Despite this, some students were resentful of her due to the high grades that she regularly received, and which these students were often unable to have. However, I do not feel that this would have justified removing her from the classroom and placing her in a program that is exclusively for gifted teenagers, as this would have caused her to feel different from her peers and excluded from a typical school experience.
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